Twitter Expands Data Collection; Burberry Gets Programmatic

On the very quiet Wednesday before Thanksgiving, Twitter told users it would start collecting data on external apps installed on their phones. In its own words, “We are collecting and occasionally updating the list of apps installed on your mobile device so we can deliver tailored content that you might be interested in.” Twitter says it will use the data to improve suggestions on who to follow, inform which Tweets it plugs into a user’s timeline and display “more relevant promoted content.” The app is the pixel. More via Re/code.

Programmatic Fashion

Haute couture retailer Burberry is making a programmatic push with a tie-up to Yahoo and Dentsu Aegis. Burberry’s campaign, launched last week, was a daylong takeover of Yahoo’s home page in the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain. “All of our inventory, including our most premium formats, is now available programmatically, offering brands the chance to run fully programmatic campaigns cross-market,” said Yahoo EMEA’s VP of audience network and programmatic platforms, Nick Huge. The Drum has more.

Tumbling Into View

Research from the Global Web Index claims that Tumblr has surpassed Instagram as the fastest-growing social platform. “Facebook has some major challenges to face,” writes the report’s author, Jason Mander. “Firstly, people are growing tired of it, with 50% of members in the UK and US saying that they’re using it less frequently than they used to (rising to 64% among teens). Since the start of 2013, we’ve seen behaviors like sharing photos and messaging friends fall by around 20 percentage points.” Coupled with Tumblr’s recently released mobile ad product, user growth could help the platform attract advertisers.

Global Forgetfulness

The EU’s list of Google grievances grows. Last week, EU privacy chiefs were gunning to make Google apply the Right To Be Forgotten ruling beyond the European Union. The freshly drafted set of rules are not yet legally binding, but ask that Google adopt “forgotten” rules to search queries in the US. More via Ad Age. Related: Europe’s Right To Be Forgotten is not only about Google. Bing and Yahoo have begun obliterating links at the request of European users. Read that.

Mozilla Stumped

In a TechCrunch post considering Mozilla’s fortunes, Frederic Lardinois concludes the once-powerful nonprofit is in trouble as its desktop browser loses share and its mobile OS efforts fail to bear fruit. “Over the last few years, Mozilla tried to make up ground by launching its own platform. That was an audacious effort … to bring low-cost phones to developing countries — but so far, that effort has barely paid off except for in a couple of very small markets.” Mozilla’s ability to dictate privacy-centric ad policies across the web could fade along with its influence. Read it.